How hops grown by McHenry County College students became beers at Woodstock brewery

For the first time last year, McHenry County College students learned how to grow hops and saw their harvest used to brew two beers now sold for a limited time at a Woodstock brewery. An MCC graphic arts student also designed the beer label.

The two varieties of beer brewed and sold at Holzlager Brewing Co. made from MCC’s hops are the MCC Wet-Hopped American Light Lager and a dry-hopped beer, Agrarian American Pale Ale. The taste is a refreshing brew, featuring a blend of earthy and citrus notes, and both “are very well received,” said Travis Slepcevich, owner of Holzlager Brewing Co.

“The beer is definitely high-quality beer, a style of beer we don’t produce often,” said Slepcevich, who opened the brewery in 2019. “It does create a uniqueness to our other beer offerings. It’s a very palatable beer. If you are a craft beer consumer, you would definitely enjoy the beer.”

The beer also is available at MCC’s student-run restaurant, Tartan Bistro.

The idea to partner with the brewery grew out of a friendship between Slepcevich, an MCC graduate, and Emily Zack, a Woodstock resident who works as the coordinator for the Center for Agrarian Learning at MCC.

The two met while attending Crystal Lake Central High School. Zack, also an MCC graduate, said this is the first time students cultivated hops on the school’s half-acre farm created in 2020.

It was a wonderful experience of growing the hops and also the opportunity to enjoy the fruit of your labor in the form of beer.”

—  MCC student Marianna Ivanovskaya-Pierard

About 40 students worked the farm, growing hops among other vegetation. In addition to growing the basic vegetables such as tomato, pepper and onion, students also grow varieties of grapes and berries, which Zack said she intends on using to create wine.

“This past year, in 2023, we did a large expansion of the farm, added a lot of specialty crops, including hops,” she said, adding that they grew four different kinds of hops.

Students planted, weeded and trellised the hops on 18-foot-tall black locust trees, and cared for them through the season. The farm also received help from the school’s garden club. Students harvested the hops in September and dried them. They then split the harvest in two. One batch was for a wet hop and the other a dry hop, each used as ingredients in the two different beers brewed and sold at the brewery, Zack said.

Marianna Ivanovskaya-Pierard of Crystal Lake, one of Zack’s students who helped grow the hops, said she “feels really good” to have been part of the process, which was a new experience for her.

“I was lucky I was able to participate from day one,” she said. “I planted them, helped to trellis them and harvest them, and at the end, I enjoy the beer.”

She said the local hops grow about 16 feet tall and attracted many people who had lots of questions, so she said she thinks “it is good for our program, too.”

“It was a wonderful experience of growing the hops and also the opportunity to enjoy the fruit of your labor in the form of beer,” Ivanovskaya-Pierard said.

The students’ crop was used to make seven barrels of beer, which totals 217 gallons or 1,736 pints. The shelf life is nine to 12 months, Slepcevich said.

“The secret to making good beer is on the hop side,” he said. “Your hops have to be very well taken care of, watered daily and managed for pests or disease.”

The manufacturing process also must be “completely clean and sanitized at every stage of the process to be sure [there are] no unwanted flavors or aromas,” Slepcevich said. “We are constantly cleaning and checking and making sure our process is the highest quality to produce a high-quality beer.”

Declan Beahan, 20, of Woodstock, an MCC student in the advance graphic design class, created the design used for the beer’s label. Beahan said the inspiration for his design was a mix of “stereotypical farm culture and a mix of multiple different cartoons.”

He said this was “an amazing experience” and he is “very grateful” to have had the opportunity to create the label. He thanked his brother as well as his instructor, Violet Luczak, who teaches graphic design at MCC, who were “both instrumental in helping create the best quality work possible.”

Luczak said the competition to create the label was part of a class project done each year. Past projects have included designing new logos for the city of Harvard and for the McHenry County Neighbors In Need event.

Working with a local brewery was “perfect” and “pretty advanced,” she said.

“Our class was on a quick deadline, had to have it done in three weeks,” Luczak said. “They were really hustling.”

Of 20 designs submitted, the art department whittled it down to eight that were presented to the brewery. Luczak said Beahan’s label was chosen in part because of his “very, very professional” presentation and the label’s “very strong design.” He created a character based on hops.

Slepcevich said Beahan’s design was chosen because “everyone agreed it was so perfect.”

“It represented agriculture and farming in McHenry County and also represents a collaboration between industry, community and education,” Slepcevich said. “[It] kind of tied everything together and showed the students you can take something from a field, manufacture it, put it in a can, put a label on it and be a success. It represents the cycle of the process.”

While the beer is flowing, there still is time to grab a pint.

“It is selling well,” Slepcevich said, “but we will have it in stock for the next two months.”